Since we started in November of 2012, we are proud to have succeeded in raising more than $150,000! Through our affiliation with the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada, we’ve funded 19 Research Studentships and a Youth Education Award thus far. With your generous support, we can continue to fund critical brain cancer research at nationwide institutes.
Funding brain cancer research
Research Studentships
The Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada’s Research Studentship program was developed to accelerate brain tumor research and encourage new, young researchers to join the field. The studentship program offers funding for two summers of work to first-year medical students and first, second or third-year undergraduate Bachelor of Science students. Read more about these brilliant students and their research below.
You can also watch our presentation at the 2020 Virtual Brain Tumour Research Symposium, hosted by the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada, where we discussed why we started our foundation, why we chose to support these Research Studentships and why we keep fighting to end brain cancer.
Adam Bakos
Undergraduate biochemistry and biomedical sciences student at the University of Windsor
I am deeply honoured to be holding this award, and for this, I extend my deepest gratitude to the Taite Boomer Memorial Brain Tumor Foundation, enabling young researchers like me to strengthen the progression of research through the joint passion and generosity of this community.
As an individual who have personally experienced the hardships that come with a brain tumour diagnosis to a loved one, I strive to contribute to a future where the uncertainty behind this disease is eliminated.
– Adam Bakos
Project title: Exploring cell cycle-targeting approaches against glioblastoma using 3D patient-derived systems and bioinformatics
Read more about this Research Studentship.
Patrick Ang
Undergraduate science student at McMaster University
This studentship will provide the opportunity to nurture my love for science and develop the creativity, critical thinking and technical skills required to better understand brain metastases and prevent and alleviate suffering for patients and their families.
– Patrick Ang
Project title: Optimizing bioassays for high throughput analysis and validation of novel compounds for brain metastasis prevention
Read more about this Research Studentship.
Anish Puri
Undergraduate science student at McMaster University
Being awarded the Brain Tumour Research Studentship is a privilege, made possible by the donors to the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada. I am so grateful to be chosen to help in the fight to improve patient outcomes and combat this detrimental disease.
– Anish Puri
Project title: uPAR as an immunotherapeutic target in recurrent glioblastoma
Read more about this Research Studentship.
Daniel Mobilio
Undergraduate science student at McMaster University
As someone who has been directly affected by brain tumours, it is my greatest honour to be awarded the Brain Tumour Research Studentship. I am so grateful that the Taite Boomer Foundation has granted me and many other brilliant students with the chance to pursue these questions!
– Daniel Mobilio
Project title: Uncovering novel small molecule drugs that prevents/blocks the progression of brain metastases
Read more about this Research Studentship.
Leonaes Brahel Tatchinda Kuete
Undergraduate science student at McGill University
This studentship is a great opportunity for me to learn from experienced mentors and explore the science of brain tumours, helping me to advance towards my career goal: becoming a medical doctor specialized in oncology. After witnessing the effects of tumours through a close family member, I realized that there is a large room of study which needs to be done in order to provide promising advances in the science of tumours.
– Leonaes Brahel Tatchinda Kuete
Project title: Understanding social behaviors in pediatric brain tumour survivors
Read more about this Research Studentship.
Leonaes’ abstract written during his first 2021 summer semester, titled “Exploring the association between social problems and withdrawal in a pediatric brain tumor survivor (PBTS) population with the use of two social measures”, was accepted for a poster presentation at the IPOS 2022 World Congress in Toronto from August 21 to September 1.
Arun Parmar
Undergraduate science student at Health Sciences at McMaster University
There are so many questions that have yet to be asked and there is still so much that is currently unknown. While this may be overwhelming to some, to me this is very exciting. Having seen the impact that this devastating diagnosis has on patients and families, I am committed to help make a difference in those affected by brain tumours.
– Arun Parmar
Project title: The knockout of HLA-G attenuates the survival of brain metastasis initiating cells in human brain metastasis
Project description: Brain metastases (BM) result from the migration of primary cancer in another tissue to the brain and is ten times more likely to develop than primary brain tumors. Derived from brain metastatic tissue samples of the most common sources of BM (lung, breast and melanoma cancers), brain metastasis-initiating cells (BMICs) have been shown to exhibit features characteristic of cancer stem cells (self-renewal, differentiation) and recapitulate all the steps of the brain metastatic cascade. RNA sequencing analysis of these BMICs at the pre-metastatic stage of the brain metastatic cascade, a stage not detectable in the clinic, revealed common upregulation of the human leukocyte antigen (HLA-G) gene in lung, breast and melanoma BMICs. Pilot experiments revealed an essential role for HLA-G in promoting BMIC self-renewal and proliferation, indicating a role for HLA-G in BMIC survival. In this study, we aim to validate the role of HLA-G knockout on the survival of BMICs using organotypic brain slice culture systems that mimic the brain microenvironment in laboratory settings. We believe knocking out HLA-G will attenuate BMIC survival and ultimately their ability to establish BM, which will provide new therapeutic opportunities of targeting HLA-G in human BM in the clinic to eliminate BM.
Read more about this Research Studentship, including the final report.
Mehula Gupta
Undergraduate science student at the University of Calgary
As a student who wants to pursue a career in Neuro-Oncology in the future, the opportunity to grow and learn as a young researcher through the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada Studentship is invaluable. On behalf of my supervisor, Dr. Aru Narendran, and myself I would like to thank Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada, Taite Boomer Foundation and all of the donors who make this program possible.
– Mehula Gupta
Project title: The perfect shot: generation of personalized vaccines for refractory childhood brain tumours
Project description: Brain tumors are the most common solid tumor in children and, currently, the single most common cause of cancer-related deaths in this age group. Many children who survive their disease will also endure severe long-term side effects of the treatments they have received. Therefore, the discovery and implementation of effective and acceptable novel therapeutic approaches are urgently needed. Immunotherapy is a promising new treatment strategy for many cancers where the patient’s immune system is stimulated to specifically target cancer cells. Recently, the effectiveness of anti-cancer vaccines has been shown in clinical trials for adult patients; however, this new knowledge has to be developed with the attention to the uniqueness of pediatric brain tumor biology. This study aims to use novel molecular and bioinformatics approaches to identify molecules found on the cancer cells, known as neoantigens, as vaccines to awaken the immune system against the tumor cells. The effectiveness of these neoantigen vaccines will be evaluated and validated in various laboratory assays. It is expected that the data generated in this research study will support the formulation of safe and effective novel therapies for pediatric brain tumors in the future.
Read more about this Research Studentship.
Sabra Salim
Undergraduate science student at McMaster University
Being awarded a Brain Tumour Research Studentship means that I can pursue my interests while learning from a dedicated community of patients, volunteers, students and scientists. As we learn more about GBM, being able to participate in developing adaptive therapies is an opportunity that I am grateful for. Even more, this award reaffirms my hopes of continuing a lifelong career in cancer biology. For the next two summers, I am honoured to explore a novel therapeutic option for patients with glioblastoma. I am indebted to Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada and the Boomer Family, who have graciously funded this award in loving memory of Taite.
– Sabra Salim
Project title: Improving the safety of CAR-T cells using inducible caspase-9 safety switch
Project description: Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary malignant brain tumor in adults. Despite current standard of care involving surgical resection, radiotherapy and high-dose chemotherapy with the alkylating agent temozolomide (TMZ), disease relapse is inevitable. Numerous studies have implicated CD133+ brain tumor-initiating cells (BTICs) as drivers of chemo- and radio-resistance in GBM. CD133 expression correlates with disease progression, recurrence and poor overall survival of GBM patients. This treatment resistance underscores an urgent need for exploring other treatment options including immunotherapy. Among different immunotherapeutic modalities, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) technology holds great promise. The CAR strategy is an adoptive T cell therapy that uses T cells with genetically modified antigen-recognizing receptors to recognize tumor cells and induce cell death upon T cell activation. However, this CAR Technology is checked by safety concerns, highlighted by the prevalence of off-target toxicities that can be lethal. To mitigate this effect, we propose to construct a cellular safety switch, inducible caspase 9 (iCasp9) CAR-T vector targeting CD133+ BTICs that has the potential to eliminate GBM BTICs as well as mitigate the risks of T-cell therapy by enabling the elimination of transferred T cells when required.
Read more about this Research Studentship.
Update: Read the Final Report for Sabra Salim’s Research Studentship.
Di Zhu
Undergraduate science student at the University of Toronto
My ultimate goal is to contribute to new therapies, which will improve survival and quality of life for patients with malignant brain tumours. I’m sincerely grateful to Taite Boomer Foundation for making this opportunity possible and will return this favour with my progress in the research of Medulloblastoma and Ependymoma with Dr. Michael Taylor.
– Di Zhu
Project title: Targeting obligate pathways of metastasis and recurrence in medulloblastoma
Project description: Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor in children. The main tumor ‘lump’ in the brain is called the ‘primary tumor’ and it can spread (metastasize) to cover other regions of the surface of the brain and spinal cord. The dream of curing cancer through precision medicine has entailed sequencing cancers to identify tumor-specific mutations, which could, in turn, be targeted by specific drugs that are lethal to the tumor but harmless to a child’s normal cells. While this model is showing early success for some cancers, it holds limited promise for treatment of medulloblastoma; recent results from the Taylor lab have shown that most medulloblastomas tumors differ greatly both across a given ‘lump’ and between a primary tumor and the metastases. Instead, medulloblastomas appear to be driven by instability in the number of chromosomes (the part of the cell that contains genes). We also know that some of these differences are seen regularly in the metastases and this makes them an excellent choice for targeted therapy. We have begun testing new drugs which target these defects—we strongly believe this is the best, and perhaps the only, way to improve the lives of children with medulloblastoma.
Read more about this Research Studentship.
Update: Read the Final Report for Di Zhu’s Research Studentship.
Quin Xie
Undergraduate Science Student at the University of Toronto
This generous award will allow me to longitudinally continue my research in the Diamandis Lab and pursue my career in the field of brain tumour research. I anticipate that my contribution will facilitate the application of the research outcome and reduce cost and time for brain tumour treatment in the future.
– Quin Xie
Project title: Automated histopathologic classification of brain tumors
Project description: Brain tumors consist of numerous heterogeneous diseases with immensely variable therapies and outcomes. Analyzing pathological slides is essential for predicting prognosis of the tumor. Despite years of training and practice of expertise for pathological analyses, pathologists may still miss subtle microscopic features of diseases, or fail to reach an agreement based on the interpretation of slides. Recent advances in molecular analyses allow definitive differentiation between tumor types. However, testing results may take days to weeks, limiting their utility for guiding clinical decision making in acute and primary care settings. Clinical decisions thus still largely rely on microscopic findings.
This project exploits deep learning, a type of artificial intelligence specializing in pattern recognition tasks, to identify different tumor types based on microscopic features. Training of a convolutional neural network (CNN) model is accomplished by inputting large numbers of images with known clinical outcomes such as survival and therapeutic response to enable CNN to generalize microscopic patterns associated with corresponding clinical events. Since computers are better at incorporating more variables simultaneously when making decisions than humans, it is anticipated that the implementation of this approach will provide more accurate predictors of outcome and treatment response to patients.
Read more about this Research Studentship, including the progress report.
Alexander Rodzinka
Undergraduate science student at the University of Windsor
I and the whole Porter Lab team wholeheartedly thank the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada and the Taite Boomer Foundation for making this research possible. I promise to put my perseverance and all my efforts to make the most of this opportunity that you have graciously bestowed upon me.
– Alexander Rodzinka
Project title: Small molecule inhibitors targeting self-renewal as a therapeutic option for recurrent childhood medulloblastoma
Project description: As the most common malignant pediatric brain tumor, medulloblastoma (MB) remains one of the leading causes of childhood cancer mortality. Its aggressive nature has recently been attributed to a rare cell population termed brain tumor-initiating cells (BTICs). BTICs alone can drive tumor formation and lead to poor outcomes by escaping available radio-chemotherapy regiments. MB patients who have relapsed hold the worst clinical prognosis, as they are limited to palliation due to a paucity of clinical trials using targeted approaches. In this project, the team has identified novel therapeutic targets, Bmi1 and STAT3, both of which play an important role in MB development and metastasis. Early experiments identified small molecule inhibitors that can effectively reduce levels of both targets and prolong survival in pre-clinical models. The main objective of the proposed study is to discover new opportunities for treating the most aggressive type of brain cancer affecting children, and thus not only improves the quality of treatment received by the children but also the overall survival of patients with MB.
Read more about this Research Studentship and read the article about Alexander’s research in a local newspaper!
Update: Read the Final Report for Alexander Rodzinka’s Research Studentship. We are proud to learn that part of the work from this project has been moved forward and the CIHR has granted more than $1 million for the project ‘Targeting Cell Cycle Checkpoints in Glioma‘! This project will determine how the Spy1 protein is involved in driving BTICs to divide and will test the potential of targeting Spy1 for treatment of this aggressive form of cancer.
Ashley Adile
Undergraduate Science Student at McMaster University
As a recipient of this research studentship I aspire to further progress and make a difference in pediatric brain cancer research. I hope that one day I will make Taite and his family, who graciously funded this award, proud knowing how his life gave meaning to the world.
– Ashley Adile
Project title: Small molecule inhibitors targeting self-renewal as a therapeutic option for recurrent childhood medulloblastoma
Project description: As the most common malignant pediatric brain tumor, medulloblastoma (MB) remains one of the leading causes of childhood cancer mortality. Its aggressive nature has recently been attributed to a rare cell population termed brain tumor-initiating cells (BTICs). BTICs alone can drive tumor formation and lead to poor outcomes by escaping available radio-chemotherapy regiments. MB patients who have relapsed hold the worst clinical prognosis, as they are limited to palliation due to a paucity of clinical trials using targeted approaches. In this project, the team has identified novel therapeutic targets, Bmi1 and STAT3, both of which play an important role in MB development and metastasis. Early experiments identified small molecule inhibitors that can effectively reduce levels of both targets and prolong survival in pre-clinical models. The main objective of the proposed study is to discover new opportunities for treating the most aggressive type of brain cancer affecting children, and thus not only improves the quality of treatment received by the children but also the overall survival of patients with MB.
Read more about this Research Studentship and check out the video on clinical trails that she and a group of students at McMaster University created!
Update: Read the Final Report for Ashley Adile’s Research Studentship.
Tae Hoon Lee
Medical Student at University of British Columbia
I sincerely thank the Taite Boomer Foundation for their generous support and Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada for giving me this opportunity to work on brain tumour research. It is time that we make further progress in the field, and I am excited to be an integral part of it.
– Tae Hoon Lee
Project title: Proteomic profiling of low-grade gliomas using a novel platform of mass spectrometry on formalin fixed paraffin embedded brain tumor tissue specimens
Project description: Low-grade glioma (LGG) encompasses a heterogeneous group of primary brain tumors. Currently, the standard treatment of LGGs consists of surgery followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Due to their heterogeneity, molecular subtyping of LGGs is routinely used in the clinic as a predictor of patient prognosis. Three LGG subtypes have recently been identified based on the mutational status of IDH1/2 and loss of chromosome arms 1p and 19q, each of which display a unique clinical, pathological and genomic phenotype despite appearing similar on histology. However, even with this new genetic insight, there remains a heterogeneous clinical response within each of the three LGG subgroups. The research team hypothesizes that cellular aberrations other than IDH1/2 and 1p/19q status contribute to the intragroup heterogeneity. This project will study the proteomics of formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) LGG tumor samples using a novel platform of mass spectrometry (MS). The integration between proteomic and genomic data in LGG cohorts will provide additional insight into the pathogenesis of brain tumors, and would ultimately result in better patient prognosis.
Read more about this Research Studentship, including the final report.
David Bobrowski
Undergraduate science student at McMaster University
It has been said that tears come from the heart, and not the brain, but it is the brain that makes each human being unique. Neuro-oncology is the bridge between neuroscience and oncology providing bench to bedside personalized care to each patient with a central nervous system tumour.
– David Bobrowski
Project title: Co-expression of EphA2 &A3 receptor tyrosine kinases mark brain tumor initiating cell population in recurrent human glioblastoma
Project description: Glioblastoma (GBM) remains incurable with a median survival of 15 months. GBM cells demonstrate significant heterogeneity in their tumor-forming ability, suggesting that only a subpopulation of stem-like cancer cells, termed brain tumor-initiating cells (BTICs), drive tumor formation and progression. Hence, the identification of BTIC-specific markers, the isolation and characterization of BTICs from cancerous tissues and targeting strategies to eliminate BTICs provide a promising opportunity for cancer research and treatment. Many of the 14 members of the erythropoietin-producing hepatocellular carcinoma (Eph) receptor family are expressed in GBM cells and are increasingly recognized as attractive therapeutic targets. To be specific, Eph receptors may play cooperative roles in modulating signaling pathways in GBM. In this study, we aim to demonstrate that the co-expression of the EphA2 and EphA3 receptors marks a BTIC population in human recurrent GBM and to further elucidate the intracellular signaling pathways of these molecules. Despite the challenges presented by the biology of the Eph system, this line of investigation offers novel therapeutic opportunities with the prospect of improved patient outcomes through the selective targeting of BTICs.
Read more about this Research Studentship.
Update: Read the Progress Report for David Bobrowski’s Research Studentship.
Matthew Dankner
Medical Student at McGill University
Being awarded a Brain Tumour Research Studentship means that students like myself have the opportunity to join the rapidly growing field of brain tumour research in Canada.
– Matthew Dankner
Project title: Using patient-derived xenograft models to identify mediators of brain metastasis in diverse cancers
Project description: Brain metastasis occurs in over 11,000 Canadians per year and comes with a bleak prognosis for patients, with their mean survival being under 1 year. Little progress has been made in the development of successful treatments or biomarkers for brain metastasis in recent years. This is in part due to the artificial models and cell lines currently used to study brain metastasis, emphasizing the importance of establishing valid and clinically relevant patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models of brain metastasis. This project aims to build and characterize a bank of PDX models of brain metastasis from breast cancer, lung cancer and melanoma using intra-cranial injections in immunocompromised mice. We hypothesize that our established bank of PDX models will be strongly similar to the surgically resected tissue and that it will reveal an expression signature common to all organ sites that can be modulated genetically and pharmacologically for application in functional experiments. This will allow us to employ the PDX models as powerful tools to study human brain metastasis, bringing us closer to developing therapeutics to treat this devastating complication of cancer.
Read more about this Research Studentship, including the final report, and check out Matthew in a video on developing patient-derived animal models of brain metastasis!
Karl Narvacan
Medical Student at the University of Alberta
As an aspiring clinician-scientist with a passion for the neurosciences, being awarded a Brain Tumour Research Studentship will unequivocally further my understanding of brain tumour pathologies, which I can hopefully translate into practice to directly benefit patients.
– Karl Narvacan
Project title: Evaluation of nCounter technology in copy number variation analysis for the integrated classification and predictive prognosis of diffuse gliomas.
Project description: Our Research aims to evaluate a new clinical method in performing copy number variation (CNV) analysis through the novel nCounter technology to aid in the integrated classification of diffuse brain tumors, including Astrocytomas, Oligodendrogliomas and Glioblastomas. Currently, the gold standard technology in CNV analysis for brain tumors is Fluorescence in Situ Hybridization (FISH), which suffers from several disadvantages including labor-intensiveness, low CNV resolution, slow throughput and high tissue sample requirements. With the development of this novel technique for clinical use, the genetic classification of brain tumors, leading to an efficient yet reproducible and specific measurement of CNVs as diagnostic, prognostic and predictive oncological markers. Ultimately, this pioneering study on improving diagnostic efficiency in laboratory analysis aims to improve therapeutic stratification and overall quality of health care approach for brain tumor patients.
Read more about this Research Studentship.
Update: Read the Final Report for Karl Narvacan’s Research Studentship.
Faran Rashid
University of Northern British Columbia
I [want] to express that I am truly grateful and honored to have been selected as the recipient. Your family’s story is very heart touching, and it motivates me to work harder every single day that I go into the lab so that I can produce meaningful and successful results.
– Faran Rashid
Project title: Searching for potential new anti-cancer compound(s) against human glioblastoma cancer cells from British Columbia wild mushrooms.
Project description: Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most prevalent and aggressive of all known malignant brain tumours. It is extremely difficult to treat GBM as the tumour cells are resistant to conventional treatments. Additionally, existing treatments can damage brain tissue, which is limited in its capacity to self-repair. Evidently so, there is substantial need for new/alternative therapeutic interventions for brain tumours. Many biologically active mushroom fraction extracts have been shown to have anti-tumour properties. For example, the compound Krestin from Coriolus versicolor has growth-inhibitory and immuno-modulatory activities, and has been used in Japan for over 30 years as an adjuvant for chemotherapy. British Columbia is home to a vast range of unexplored mushroom species, many potentially harbouring novel compounds with similar anti-tumour properties. In this project, I will first screen active crude fractions isolated from various wild BC wild mushrooms for growth-inhibitory activity against a panel of 10 human glioblastoma cancer cell lines. The second part of this project involves purification and identification of the responsible growth-inhibitory compound(s) from a selected crude mushroom fraction. Hence, this study has the potential to discover new anti-cancer compound(s) for the treatment of patients with glioblastoma multiforme to improve their quality of life.
Read more about this Research Studentship and check out the article in The Prince George Citizen!
Update: Read the Final Report for Faran Rashid’s Research Studentship.
Thusyanth Vijaykumar
Lab of Dr. Sheila Singh, McMaster University, McMaster Stem Cell & Cancer Research Institute, Ontario
Being awarded a Brain Tumour Research Studentship means an incredible opportunity given by the many supportive donors for young scientists such as myself to bring forth a positive impact in this intricate field of research. This prestigious award exemplifies the importance of giving it my all to overcome the barriers of becoming a successful researcher who can truly give back to his community.
– Thusyanth Vijaykumar
Project title: Sox2 marks the treatment-refractory population on Shh-dependent medulloblastoma stem cells.
Project description: Medulloblastoma (MB) is the most common type of malignant brain tumor in children, and is thought to arise from an abnormal stem cell. Recent research has categorized MB into four subgroups, of which one is characterized by activation of the Sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling pathway. Research in the Singh Laboratory has identified Sox2, a gene used to mark normal neural stem cells as a unique downstream target in Shh-dependent MB. Consequently, the current project will further investigate the role of Sox2 in MB stem cells.
Of particular interest, Shh inhibitors have proven to be inefficient in treating Group 2 MBs, and as a result, we will characterize the role of Sox2 in marking the treatment-refractory population in this particular subgroup of MB. We hope to discover the potential therapeutic role of Sox2 in controlling MB treatment response and to further develop the cancer stem cell hypothesis by linking genes and signaling pathways active in normal neural stem cells with those driving tumor formation and maintenance in MB.
Read more about this Research Studentship.
Update: Read the Mid-Point Report for Thusyanth Vijayakumar’s Research Studentship.
Rajas Tipnis
Lab of Dr. Sachin Katyal, University of Manitoba and Manitoba Institute of Cell Biology, CancerCare Manitoba
Being awarded a Brain Tumour Research Studentship means that donors are helping develop the next generation of research scientists such as me. This studentship assists me in reaching my career goal of becoming a brain tumour researcher. This award gives me a great deal of confidence in facing the challenges that lie ahead. I am extremely grateful for this award.
– Rajas Tipnis
Project title: Inhibition of the DNA single strand break repair pathway in the treatment of malignant brain tumors.
Project description: Current methods to treat the childhood brain tumour, medulloblastoma, are highly invasive and lead to poor quality-of-life. The targeted use of compounds that modulate DNA repair enzymes to affect tumour cell killing is an emerging tool in cancer chemotherapeutics. As studies have shown that the brain is especially susceptible to dysregulation of the DNA damage repair response, the project will investigate how this repair process co-ordinately affects brain development and how selectively modulating DNA repair processes in brain tumours may increase the efficacy of radio and chemotherapeutic drugs. Rajas’s research will serve to expand our knowledge of DNA repair neurobiology and translate his data into tangible next-generation cancer treatment paradigms with improved patient quality-of-life.
Over the course of two summers, Rajas will learn advanced cell derivation and culturing methods wherein he will use state-of-the-art genetic and biochemical techniques to modulate the expression of the DNA single-strand break repair factors Xrcc1 and Tdp1. Upon proficiency of these skills, Rajas will use advanced microscopy and single-cell gel electrophoresis techniques to perform DNA damage assays to measure the responses of cells to front-line cancer chemotherapeutics. Then Rajas will expand his use of mouse genetic models and incorporate analysis of medulloblastoma tumours in his research using the previous summer’s findings.
Read more about this Research Studentship.
Update: Read the Final Progress Report for Rajas Tipnis’ Research Studentship.
Youth Education Award
The Brain Tumour Youth Education Award program, offered by the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada, provides young brain tumour survivors (those diagnosed with a brain tumour before the age of 18) with the opportunity to pursue their dreams through post-secondary education. Following treatment and recovery, there are many difficulties including epilepsy, physical disabilities, learning challenges and financial strains. These awards are open to students between the ages of 16 and 25, who will be enrolled full-time in a publicly-funded Canadian university or college.
Thank you to all of our donors, whose support and generosity has allowed the Taite Boomer Foundation to fund these studentships and awards.
Matthew McKinnon
Surrey, BC
I hope to work for a not-for-profit as it’s been a goal of mine ever since my cancer journey. Seeing what people who work at these organizations can accomplish has driven me to give back to all those who have inspired, helped and supported me along the way.
– Matthew McKinnon
Matthew McKinnon, who was diagnosed with a pineal yolk sac brain tumor at the age of 16, is pursuing a diploma in Public Relations (PR) and eventually hopes to graduate with a degree in PR and Communications.
To read more about this Youth Education Award, please use this link.